THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER 29 



The little that I see is confined to interminable pre- 

 ludes. Standing face to face, with foreheads almost 

 touching, the lovers feel and sound each other for a long- 

 time with their limp antennae. They suggest two fencers 

 crossing and recrossing harmless foils. From time to 

 time, the male stridulates a little, gives a few short strokes 

 of the bow and then falls silent, feeling perhaps too much 

 overcome to continue. Eleven o'clock strikes; and the 

 declaration is not yet over. Very regretfully, but con- 

 quered by sleepiness, I quit the couple. 



Next morning, early, the female carries, hanging at 

 the bottom of her ovipositor, a queer bladder-like ar- 

 rangement, an opaline capsule, the size of a large pea and 

 roughly subdivided into a small number of egg-shaped 

 vesicles. When the insect walks, the thing scrapes along 

 the ground and becomes dirty with sticky grains of sand. 

 The Grasshopper then makes a banquet off this fertilizing 

 capsule, drains it slowly of its contents, and devours it 

 bit by bit; for a long time she chews and rechews the 

 gummy morsel and ends by swallowing* it all down. In 

 less than half a day, the milky burden has disappeared, 

 consumed with zest down to the last atom. 



This inconceivable banquet must be imported, one 

 would think, from another planet, so far removed is it 

 from earthly habits. What a singular race are the 

 Locustidse, one of the oldest in the animal kingdom on 

 dry land and, like the Scolopendra and the Cephalopod, 

 acting as a belated representative of the manners of an- 

 tiquity ! 



